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  "work": {
    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
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      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
      "url": "/sources/divine-comedy/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 11,
    "slug": "canto-11",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 11",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1232,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 11\n\n\nCanto XI\n\nArgument\n\nDante arrives at the verge of a rocky precipice which encloses the\nseventh circle, where he sees the sepulchre of Anastasius the Heretic; behind\nthe lid of which pausing a little, to make himself capable by degrees of\nenduring the fetid smell that steamed upward from the abyss, he is instructed\nby Virgil concerning the manner in which the three following circles are\ndisposed, and what description of sinners is punished in each. He then\ninquires the reason why the carnal, the gluttonous, the avaricious and\nprodigal, the wrathful and gloomy, suffer not their punishments within the\ncity of Dis. He next asks how the crime of usury is an offence against God;\nand at length the two Poets go toward the place from whence a passage leads\ndown to the seventh circle.\n\nUpon the utmost verge of a high bank,\nBy craggy rocks environ'd round, we came.\nWhere woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stow'd:\nAnd here, to shun the horrible excess\nOf fetid exhalation upward cast\nFrom the profound abyss, behind the lid\nOf a great monument we stood retired,\nWhereon this scroll I mark'd: \"I have in charge\nPope Anastasius,[1] whom Photinus drew\nFrom the right path.\" \"Ere our descent, behoves\nWe make delay, that somewhat first the sense,\nTo the dire breath accustom'd, afterward\nRegard it not.\" My master thus; to whom\nAnswering I spake: \"Some compensation find,\nThat the time pass not wholly lost.\" He then:\n\"Lo! how my thoughts e'en to thy wishes tend.\nMy son! within these rocks,\" he thus began,\n\"Are three close circles in gradation placed,\nAs these which now thou leavest. Each one is full\nOf spirits accurst; but that the sight alone\nHereafter may suffice thee, listen how\nAnd for what cause in durance they abide.\n\n[1: By some supposed to have been Anastasius II.; by others, the\nfourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal\nfaith, contend that our poet has confounded him with Anastasius I., Emperor of\nthe East.]\n\n\"Of all malicious act abhorr'd in Heaven,\nThe end is injury; and all such end\nEither by force or fraud works other's woe.\nBut fraud, because of man's peculiar evil,\n\nTo God is more displeasing; and beneath,\nThe fraudulent are therefore doom'd to endure\nSeverer pang. The violent occupy\nAll the first circle; and because, to force,\nThree persons are obnoxious, in three rounds,\nEach within other separate, is it framed.\nTo God, his neighbor, and himself, by man\nForce may be offer'd; to himself I say,\nAnd his possessions, as thou soon shalt hear\nAt full. Death, violent death, and painful wounds\nUpon his neighbor he inflicts; and wastes,\nBy devastation, pillage, and the flames,\nHis substance. Slayers, and each one that smites\nIn malice, plunderers, and all robbers, hence\nThe torment undergo of the first round,\nIn different herds. Man can do violence\nTo himself and his own blessings: and for this,\nHe, in the second round must aye deplore\nWith unavailing penitence his crime,\nWhoe'er deprives himself of life and light,\nIn reckless lavishment his talent wastes,\nAnd sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.\nTo God may force be offer'd, in the heart\nDenying and blaspheming His high power,\nAnd Nature with her kindly law contemning.\nAnd thence the inmost round marks with its seal\nSodom, and Cahors, and all such as speak\nContemptuously of the Godhead in their hearts.\n\n\"Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting,\nMay be by man employ'd on one, whose trust\nHe wins, or on another, who withholds\nStrict confidence. Seems as the latter way\nBroke but the bond of love which Nature makes.\nWhence in the second circle have their nest,\nDissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries,\nTheft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce\nTo lust, or set their honesty at pawn,\nWith such vile scum as these. The other way\nForgets both Nature's general love, and that\nWhich thereto added afterward gives birth\nTo special faith. Whence in the lesser circle,\nPoint of the universe, dread seat of Dis,\nThe traitor is eternally consumed.\"\n\nI thus: \"Instructor, clearly thy discourse\nProceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm\nAnd its inhabitants with skill exact.\nBut tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool,\nWhom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives,\nOr who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet,\nWherefore within the city fire - illumed\nAre not these punish'd, if God's wrath be on them?\nAnd if it be not, wherefore in such guise\nAre they condemn'd?\" He answer thus return'd:\n\"Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind,\nNot so accustom'd? or what other thoughts\nPossess it? Dwell not in thy memory\nThe words, wherein thy ethic page[2] describes\nThree dispositions adverse to Heaven's will,\nIncontinence, malice, and mad brutishness,\nAnd how incontinence the least offends\nGod, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note\nThis judgment, and remember who they are,\nWithout these walls to vain repentance doom'd,\nThou shalt discern why they apart are placed\nFrom these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours\nJustice divine on them its vengeance down.\"\n\n[2: \"Thy ethic page.\" He refers to Aristotle's Ethics, lib. vii. c.\n1: \"_____ let it be defined that respecting morals there are three sorts of\nthings to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness.\"]\n\n\"O sun! who healest all imperfect sight,\nThou so content'st me, when thou solvest my doubt,\nThat ignorance not less than knowledge charms.\nYet somewhat turn thee back,\" I in these words\nContinued,\" where thou said'st, that usury\nOffends celestial Goodness; and this knot\nPerplex'd unravel.\" He thus made reply:\n\"Philosophy, to an attentive ear,\nClearly points out, not in one part alone,\nHow imitative Nature takes her course\nFrom the celestial mind, and from its art:\nAnd where her laws[3] the Stagirite unfolds,\n\n[3: \"Her laws.\" Aristotle's Physics, lib. ii. c. 2: \"Art imitates\nnature.\"]\n\nNot many leaves scann'd o'er, observing well\nThou shalt discover, that your art on her\nObsequious follows, as the learner treads\nIn his instructor's step; so that your art\nDeserves the name of second in descent\nFrom God. These two, if thou recall to mind\nCreation's holy book,[4] from the beginning\nWere the right source of life and excellence\nTo human - kind. But in another path\nThe usurer walks; and Nature in herself\nAnd in her follower thus he sets at nought,\nPlacing elsewhere his hope.[5] But follow now\nMy steps on forward journey bent; for now\nThe Pisces play with undulating glance\nAlong the horizon, and the Wain[6] lies all\nO'er the northwest; and onward there a space\nIs our steep passage down the rocky height.\"\n\n[4: \"Creation's holy book.\" Genesis, c. ii. v. 15: \"And the Lord God\ntook the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep\nit.\" And, Genesis, c. iii. v. 19: \"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat\nbread.\"]\n\n[5: \"Placing elsewhere his hope.\" The usurer, trusting in the produce\nof his wealth lent out on usury, despises nature directly, because he does not\navail himself of her means for maintaining or enriching himself; and\nindirectly, because he does not avail himself of the means which art, the\nfollower and imitator of nature, would afford him for the same purposes.]\n\n[6: \"The Wain.\" The constellation Bootes, or Charles' Wain.]",
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}